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Monday, 24 October 2016

76th Foot (2)

When I first posted about the 76th Foot in June 2014 (see here) I explained how I intended to paint up two units' worth of figures. As I explained in that earlier post, in the published "British Grenadier!" scenario books, the 76th appear in two battles: Petersburg (volume 3) and the hypothetical Gloucester Point (volume 2 - a planned but abandoned British break-out attempt from Yorktown). In the Petersburg scenario, the ratio of 1:15 creates a large unit of 32 figures that is divided into two "wings" of 16 figures each. In Gloucester Point, there is just one unit of 24 figures. I decided to paint one "wing" in marching poses and the second "wing" in charging poses, the latter being bulked out to 24 figures to accommodate the Gloucester Point scenario. So here's that second wing.

I won't repeat the AWI service history of the 76th Foot, which is set out in my previous post. And needless to say, these are all King's Mountain Miniatures figures. Bill Nevins' extraordinary commitment to this range means that (together with the Perry range) we are now well served for highlanders. In fact it's hard to think of what's missing, except skirmishing flank companies, perhaps. I placed the colours with this "wing", as the relevant figures seemed to me more suited to the charging poses than the marching ones; but you can use them for either. I mixed in a couple of casualty figures - again, these work for any of the three poses that the KMM figures come in (the third being firing line). There isn't a charging officer but there is a charging sergeant figure - I've used two of those in this unit. I can't recall why it's taken me so long to post about this second batch of the 76th. I think it took me a good while to get around to ordering the colours from GMB (who then delivered very promptly).

24 figures. Painted January to March 2016. Flags from GMB.

I recently took all my highlander figures out of their boxes for a parade. My current tally is this: the 42nd/Black Watch (30 figures); the 84th/Royal Highland Emigrants (18); 3 units of the 71st (18, 18, 24); 2 units of the 76th (16, 24); the "4th combined grenadier battalion" (16); plus 3 mounted officers and 4 casualty figures. That's 171 highlanders in total (in fact it's 172 if you include the highlander mini-me in the Perry interrogation pack, and I haven't included any of the generals who happened to be Scottish), of which around 115 are wearing some sort of tartan. And I've painted 50-odd highlanders for Bill too. I'm not quite finished - I need a unit of 71st Foot skirmishers for Gloucester Point, and in theory a 16-figure unit of light companies for Briar Creek, but I'll probably give the latter a miss. Here are a few photos of my collected Jocks (although without the grenadier battalion). I'm intending to write posts about the three mounted officers shortly.